Rough Times, 1972, vol. 3, no. 2
Mental Health
RT - A Journal of Radical Therapy, was a radical, “alternate journal” of mental health that emerged initially in the early 1970s in Minot, North Dakota in the context of the New Left. It published 12 issues between 1970 and 1972 and "voiced pointed criticisms of psychiatrists during this period. The journal, originally titled, The Radical Therapist and then Rough Times, was run by a group of psychiatrists and activists who believed that mental illness was best treated by social change, not behavioral modification. Their motto was "Therapy means social, political and personal change, not adjustment.” In the 1969 manifesto that launched the journal, organizers wrote:
Why have we begun another journal? No other publication meets the need we feel exists: to unite all people concerned with the radical analysis of therapy in this society. It is time we grouped together and made common cause. We need to exchange experience and ideas, and join others working toward change. The other “professional” journals are essentially establishment organs which back the status quo on most controversial issues… We need a new forum for our views.
In the midst of a society tormented by war, racism, and social turmoil, therapy goes on with business as usual. In fact, therapists often look suspiciously at social change and label as ‘disturbed’ those who press towards it.
Therapy today has become a commodity, a means of social control. We reject such an approach to people`s distress. We reject the pleasant careers with which the system rewards its adherents. The social system must change, and we will be workers toward such change.
Those involved with this movement sought to offer and alternative to “Establishment” therapeutic approaches. Like many movements of this period, over time, ideological splits divided participants and led to numerous changes in the effort and the journal.
This issue includes an RT position paper; combat liberalism; psychiatric drugs; women’s sex education in a state hospital; impressions of a mental institution; the grief of soldiers; gynecology; beauty standards; Paddington Day Hospital in London; quaaludes; patients’ rights; mental health in China; Old People’s Yellow Pages in Boston; Mental Patients Association; transactional analysis; homosexuality and prison treatment; George Jackson, letters and poetry.
The Radical Therapist, Inc.
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
1972
newspaper
University Review - November 1973
New Left
University Review was ;published was published by Entelechy Press in New York City. “Entelechy” is a term coined by Aristotle that has come to mean a force propelling one to self-fulfillment. According to the magazine front-matter, "UR. Universal Ragout. Ultimate Repast. Worldly in taste, stellar in ingredients, intergalactic in appeal... Food for thought. Month after month. Whet your appetite." This issue includes a media briefs; an interview with George Lucas; reviews of books on women in prison, Kent State, Timothy Leary and the Rosenbergs; munis reviews of John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner; and the Isley Brothers.
Entelechy Press
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
November 1973
newspaper
Rough Times, June/July 1973, vol. 3, no. 6
Mental Health
RT - A Journal of Radical Therapy, was a radical, “alternate journal” of mental health that emerged initially in the early 1970s in the context of the New Left. It published 12 issues between 1970 and 1972 and "voiced pointed criticisms of psychiatrists during this period. The journal, originally titled, The Radical Therapist and then Rough Times, was run by a group of psychiatrists and activists who believed that mental illness was best treated by social change, not behavioral modification. Their motto was "Therapy means social, political and personal change, not adjustment.” In the 1969 manifesto that launched the journal, organizers wrote:
Why have we begun another journal? No other publication meets the need we feel exists: to unite all people concerned with the radical analysis of therapy in this society. It is time we grouped together and made common cause. We need to exchange experience and ideas, and join others working toward change. The other “professional” journals are essentially establishment organs which back the status quo on most controversial issues… We need a new forum for our views.
In the midst of a society tormented by war, racism, and social turmoil, therapy goes on with business as usual. In fact, therapists often look suspiciously at social change and label as ‘disturbed’ those who press towards it.
Therapy today has become a commodity, a means of social control. We reject such an approach to people`s distress. We reject the pleasant careers with which the system rewards its adherents. The social system must change, and we will be workers toward such change.
Those involved with this movement sought to offer and alternative to “Establishment” therapeutic approaches. Like many movements of this period, over time, ideological splits divided participants and led to numerous changes in the effort and the journal.
This issue includes articles on Changes, a therapeutic group; prison behavior modification programs; a review of Radical Psychology; electroshock treatment; art by Havana Psychiatric Hospital patients; a case for anti-psychology; new approaches to psychology for men; an update on the state of RT.
The Radical Therapist, Inc.
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
June/July 1973
newspaper
City Star, June 1973, vol. 1, no. 2
New Left
The Liberated Guardian formed out of a workers strike at The Guardian newspaper in New York City in the Spring of 1970. The Liberated Guardian was notable for it strong stand in favor of armed struggle. An ideological and political split within the ranks of the Liberated Guardian staff led to the newspaper’s demise in late-1973 and the creation of a new, short-lived newspaper called the New York City Star.
In this issue, articles focus on the killing of Clifford Glover; Black Liberation Army; African Liberation Day; daycare centers; school board politics; a union drive at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital; Carlos Feliciano trial; defeat of a local gay rights ordinance; Rockefeller drug laws; bike trails in NYC; Head Start; May Day; energy crisis; Chrysler and racism; Wounded Knee; behavior modification in prison; international political briefs; Middle East politics; Quaaludes; gay liberation; women’s liberation poetry; Watergate crossword puzzle; and music, book and film reviews.
City Star
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
June 1973
newspaper
University Review, no. 28, April 1973
New Left
University Review was ;published was published by Entelechy Press in New York City. “Entelechy” is a term coined by Aristotle that has come to mean a force propelling one to self-fulfillment. According to the magazine front-matter, "UR. Universal Ragout. Ultimate Repast. Worldly in taste, stellar in ingredients, intergalactic in appeal... Food for thought. Month after month. Whet your appetite." This issue includes letters to the editor; an editorial on Allen Ginsburg, Pete Seeger and Groucho Marx; Weather Underground Communique #13; film review of Charlotte’s Web; an interview with Bernardo Bertolucci; Bobby Seale’s mayoral campaign; women in prison;
Food fads; a music review of Mahavishnu Orchestra, Bob Marley and the Wailers, David Bromberg, the Moody Blues and a set of new blues records; book reviews about drugs, Our Bodies, Ourselves, Vietnam and several books about film.
University Review
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Rough Times, April/May 1973, vol. 3, no. 5
Mental Health
<p>RT - A Journal of Radical Therapy, was a radical, “alternate journal” of mental health that emerged initially in the early 1970s in the context of the New Left. It published 12 issues between 1970 and 1972 and "voiced pointed criticisms of psychiatrists during this period. The journal, originally titled, The Radical Therapist and then Rough Times, was run by a group of psychiatrists and activists who believed that mental illness was best treated by social change, not behavioral modification. Their motto was "Therapy means social, political and personal change, not adjustment.” In the 1969 manifesto that launched the journal, organizers wrote:</p>
<p><em>Why have we begun another journal? No other publication meets the need we feel exists: to unite all people concerned with the radical analysis of therapy in this society. It is time we grouped together and made common cause. We need to exchange experience and ideas, and join others working toward change. The other “professional” journals are essentially establishment organs which back the status quo on most controversial issues… We need a new forum for our views.</em></p>
<p><em>In the midst of a society tormented by war, racism, and social turmoil, therapy goes on with business as usual. In fact, therapists often look suspiciously at social change and label as ‘disturbed’ those who press towards it.</em></p>
<p><em>Therapy today has become a commodity, a means of social control. We reject such an approach to people`s distress. We reject the pleasant careers with which the system rewards its adherents. The social system must change, and we will be workers toward such change.</em></p>
<p>Those involved with this movement sought to offer and alternative to “Establishment” therapeutic approaches. Like many movements of this period, over time, ideological splits divided participants and led to numerous changes in the effort and the journal.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>
<p>This issue includes articles on electroshock therapy; police raid on Free School in Florida; prison letters; fear; prison therapists; housing; paranoia; healing; Freud; patient advocacy and legal services; female psyche; housework; minors; poetry; book reviews; letters.</p>
The Radical Therapist, Inc.
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
April/May 1973
newspaper
Fag Rag, January 1973
Gay Liberation
Fag Rag was a Boston-based gay liberation newspaper published by a group of writers and activists from 1971 through the early-1980s. This issue includes articles about a guide to bars, baths and books; an interview between a Hustler and customer"; a gay Vietnam veteran; generational differences in the gay liberation movement; homosexuals and welfare; the closet; the first international gay liberation congress in Milan; gay pride week; poetry; Miami Democratic Convention; "cocksucking" as a revolutionary act; police repression; race and homosexuality; gay experience at rest stops; homosexuality in prison; letters to the editor.
Fag Rag Collective
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
January 1973
underground press
White Lightning, no. 13, February 1973
New Left
Based in the Bronx, New York, and founded in 1971, White Lightning was a revolutionary community organization made up of whites and dedicated to serving the people. The group was founded by ex-addicts who had participated in Logos, a residential drug treatment program in the Bronx that used the “Therapeutic Community Model” for treating drug addiction, which emphasized “intense, confrontation group sessions.” Interestingly, drug treatment programs were one of the few places where black, white and Latino people came together, which provided a unique opportunity for radical activists. After leaders of Logos attempted to convert the organization from a treatment program into a lifelong utopian community, activists led by Gil Fagiani, who feared it was evolving into a cult, formed a break-away group called “Spirit of Logos.” The organization was influenced by the activism of the Young Lords and viewed drug addiction as the result of racism and poverty, rather than individual pathology and focused their work on unjust drug laws, the defunding of drug treatment programs, slum lords, drug pushers and addicts, organized crime, corrupt police, as well as what they saw as drug companies plundering African American, Latino poor white neighborhoods in New York City. In 1971, the group split along racial lines, with black and brown members refusing to work with white members. While the African American and Latino group soon dissolved, about a dozen white activists formed a new group and called themselves “White Lightning.” They targeted the white working-class and put out a monthly newspaper. As Fagiani explained years later, “We believed it essential to support the liberation struggles of people of color. We joined picket lines organized by the mostly Mexican American United Farm Workers Union, as well as demonstrations against the massacre at Attica State Prison and the political repression directed at the Black Panthers, Young Lords, and the American Indian Movement… White Lightning viewed the following questions as critical: How could we get working-class whites to see they had a stake in left politics? How could we convince them to look at people of color as their logical allies instead of their natural enemies?” White Lightning members also explored the histories of discrimination and class oppression faced by white ethnic groups in America as a way to build solidarity across racial lines. Like many groups in the early-1970s, White Lightning ultimately succumbed to sectarian divisions and disbanded.
This issue of White Lightning includes articles that focus on a city-wide rent hike; sports revolt; “People’s Grapevine,” which offered brief reports on other activism in the city; Lincoln Detox; abortion; housing as a human right; the war in Vietnam; socialist housing; women in prison; government attacks on working people and immigrants; comix.
Spirit of Logos
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
February 1973
underground press
Prisoners Solidarity Committee, September 17, 1971
Prisoner's Rights Movement
The Prisoners Solidarity Committee was organized in 1971 by the Workers World Party, a revolutionary Marxist organization made up mainly of white radicals, to provide outside help for the incarcerated after a prison uprising in Auburn, New York. Initially formed in New York, the PSC ultimately spread to other locations across the country, including Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee and Wilmington, Delaware. In addition to white leftists, the group also included relatives of prisoners and some ex-prisoners. The PSC sought to publicize the conditions inside U.S. prisons and advocate for reform.
The group also played a role in the Attica Prison uprising. This special newsletter on Attica includes articles on conditions inside the prison; prisoner demands; prisoners’ relatives; a meeting with community members; solidarity protests in other cities.
Prisoners Solidarity Committee
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
September 17, 1971
underground press
Midnight Special Prisoners News, vol. 3, no. 7, July 1973
Prisoner's Rights Movement
Midnight Special Prisoners News was published in the early-1970s by the National Lawyers Guild in New York. The newspaper was a part of the larger prisoner’s rights movement and sought to provide news about conditions inside prisons from the prisoner’s point of view. It also shared legal information aimed at helping prisoners and expanding their rights. In this issue, articles focus on the Intensive Treatment Program Center in Marquette, Michigan; conditions at Attica State Prison; the purpose of police; reports from prisons in Milan, Michigan, Lorton, Virginia, Springfield, Missouri, Clinton and Bordertown, New Jersey, Bedford Hills, New York, Frontera, California, Dannemora, New York, Mattewan State Hospital in New York, and Riker’s Island, New York; a plea for prisoner unity; the case of the Virgin Island 5; the Wounded Knee 8; poetry; race, class and prisoner unity; the Polar Bear Party; education and liberation; update on a Brooklyn prisoner rights lawsuit; letters to the editor.
National Lawyers Guild
Roz Payne
Center for Digital Research in the Humanities, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
July 1973
underground press